1. Field of the Invention
As surely as death and taxes, a person, such as a hunter, will eventually climb a tree or a tree stand, or otherwise find him or herself in some remote elevated position, from which he or she will look down, horrified in the realization that an item incident to the hunt, or the hunters comfort and convenience, has fallen from his or her perch, or left below inadvertently.
Regardless of the particular circumstance, the result is the same, and the hunter is compelled to descend from his or her location to retrieve the article below or go without. Neither alternative is particularly palatable or satisfying, and, as a consequence, others have attempted to address the circumstance and pose a variety of solutions. As will be readily apparent, however, in the discourse to follow, none have succeeded in providing a global solution.
2. Overview of the Related Art
A person who chooses to perch above the ground for whatever reason, i.e., whether a hunter or observer, share a common problem. Specifically, there is a tendency to drop things, or even forget to bring with them, certain things as they ascend to their roost. The most common solution to such a dilemma, where the perch is at any significant height above the ground, is to descend and retrieve the errant item.
Not only is this movement typically disturbing to the area in proximity to the activity in which the individual involved is engaged, making the presence of the individual more readily discernable, it is often downright tiring. While the invention taught herein is not the first to address the problem, it is perhaps the most timely and useful.
In 1995, for example, Wenk issued U.S. Pat. No. 5,388,877, which attempted to address the problem of raising and lowering a bow to and from a hunting perch by means of a spring loaded fishing type reel in which a line with a hook on the end is used to snare the bow on the ground.
In 2000, McCloy took a different approach to the same problem in his U.S. Pat. No. 6,106,042, in when he attached a grasping head to a rope for retrieving such things as a cap or the like. The fingers of McCloy are selectively openable and closeable about the item to be retrieved.
Doyelle U.S. Pat. No. 5,382,935 is a rotary, magnetic grabber, but perhaps too heavy to be used in the present context, and Schroeder U.S. Pat. No. 6,073,983 is a somewhat more versatile version of a magnetic grabber, designed for the retrieval of flashing or the like from ground to roof.
Finally, Jarousch, in his U.S. Pat. No. 6,065,787 combines a magnet, single hook and an adhesive pad in a telescoping device intended for use by a person who is, for any number of reasons, unable to bend down and pick up a particular object. The device is unusable as a retriever by someone in a greatly elevated perch, e.g., a tree limb or a tree stand.